Thursday, 3 November 2011

Ahhh! I'm late in posting, but it's for a good reason. I stayed up late last night and got a decent word count thus ended up sleeping a little later than normal. I also took a little time today to spend with my husband and youngest son. My DH will be giving me as much time as possible to write during his breaks so I think it's only fair to take a break for a few hours to spend some time with him and the kids. So on to business...

I am confident that I'll be able to make it. Especially since I think I figured out what makes the task less daunting for both me and Lucien (my muse). As I was writing last night, I checked to see how many more words I needed to reach 52k on UHH. It dawned on me as I was doing this how much harder I try when I see how little I have to reach that goal. Most of the time it's less than 100 or 200 words. So I push myself to finish that little bit and suddenly I'm close to finishing another 100- 1k. When I'm on the front end of the 1k I focus on it in increments of 100 until I'm nearly finished with the 1k. Then I focus on reaching the 1k mark and so on and so forth.

So with this revelation in mind, I'll begin my writing goal tonight not by looking at the 2k I HAVE to make to stay on target for the month (I did the math and I actually need a little over 1700 to reach the 50k goal for the month). Instead I'll start by focusing my goal on getting that 344 words out of the way. If my theory is correct, the next time I look at my word count I'll already be halfway through the next 1k. I'll let you know if this works for me. And by all means, feel free to try this out for yourself.

Now for an inspiring quote and of course some eye candy. (BTW, if there are any guys who would like a little female eye candy, let me know and I'll post it too.)

To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself. ~ Anne Rice

Don't worry about this during NaNo though! You can fix these errors when you start editing/revising in December!

Mmmm...I really don't think any words are necessary here. *sigh*

Okay, enough play time.Here's a towel to wipe the drool off the keyboard. Now get back to work. You have a novel to finish!! You can always come revisit the pretty when you need a little more inspiration. I know I will.

Wednesday, 2 November 2011

Day 2 of my NaNo journey is over. Day two was an improvement over day one. Still way off of my goal, but at least I had progress. Here's my results for the day/month so far.

Untamed Hawaiian Heat began at 51706 and ended at 51795 for a total of 89 words added.
Branded Souls began at 0 and ended at 449 words.

Combined total for the first two days is 630 words. Only 49,370 more to reach the 50k mark. A daunting challenge, but I'm going to try. My DH has the next few days off so I hope to regain some of the ground I've lost the first couple of days. Now I'm off to work on those edits I mentioned in the first post.

Here's your daily dose of motivation.

If you wish to be a writer; write! ~Epictetus

Go play with your words! Create something wonderful!

Now if he doesn't inspire you to write something I don't know what will!

On to day 3 for me! Edits this morning and writing tonight after I've attended all the familial duties. Happy writing everyone!

Tuesday, 1 November 2011

It’s that time of year again. Time to buckle down in your favorite writing chair and type until your fingers fall off. Practice your BICHOK (butt in chair hands on keyboard) until you can no longer feel said butt. In other words, ignore the outside world as much as possible as you pay homage to your muse. Hopefully you’ll come out of this month long phenomenon with the rough draft of a manuscript that with a little bit of polish will be saleable.

I’m sitting here on Day 2 of my NaNo journey looking at my pitiful word count from yesterday. As many of you may know, I’m a domestic goddess J (in other words a stay at home mom and wife) so invariably my writing time falls in the wee hours of the morning. Unfortunately, I was dead tired last night and unable to concentrate enough to string two words together, much less the amount needed to make my daily quota. I’m aiming for 2k a day.

So here I am patiently biding my time until my toddler takes his nap so I can try and get some words in. He tends to like sitting right beside me (practically on my lap) and try to type for me or play with my mouse. (Honestly, I’m surprised he’s being good long enough for me to write this post.)

Here are my goals for NaNo. Some of them are out of the norm for the official NaNoWriMo rules, but I’ve got some things on my plate that I really need to finish. I hope to update everyone on a daily basis.

1)Finish the edits for Falling Star (the sequel to Shooting Stars)

2)Finish revising Untamed Hawaiian Heat and resubmit it

3)Write Branded Souls (second book in my Romantic Bondage Series)

So there they are. I’ve added a meter for Untamed Hawaiian Heat and Branded Souls. At the very least I’ll adjust the word count total on them and post something inspirational for all my fellow NaNoers. I know there are many. I’ll leave you with a quote and pic for the day.

A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can you not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives it the right to dream. ~ Gaston Bachelard

Take a page out of Snoopy's book. No matter what he never stopped writing!

And for those needing a more stimulating visual for your writing inspiration...

What are you waiting for? He's beckoning you to write his story.

Good luck to everyone! May your fingers fly over the keyboard spouting magic in their wake!

I hope you join me again to...

Discover worlds where passion breathes...

Aloha,

Shay

Oh! Almost forgot to give you my word counts. I tried to grab one of those meters, but couldn't figure out how to make it work. So You'll have to do with me just typing my progress in. :)

Untamed Hawaiian Heat 51795 (Aiming for approximately 80k)

Branded Souls 0 (Aiming for 30k, I'll be working on this one a little later today)